The foreign policies of Mandela and Mbeki : a clear case of idealism vs realism?

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THE FOREIGN POLICIES OF MANDELA AND MBEKI: A

CLEAR CASE OF IDEALISM VS REALISM ?

by

CHRISTIAN YOULA

Thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts (International Studies)

at

Stellenbosch University

Department of Political Science

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Supervisor: Dr Karen Smith

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Declaration

By submitting this thesis electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the owner of the copyright thereof and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification.

Date: 28 February 2009

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Abstract

After 1994, South African foreign policymakers faced the challenge of reintegrating a country, isolated for many years as a result of the previous government’s apartheid policies, into the international system. In the process of transforming South Africa's foreign identity from a pariah state to a respected international player, some commentators contend that presidents Mandela and Mbeki were informed by two contrasting theories of International Relations (IR), namely, idealism and realism, respectively.

In light of the above-stated popular assumptions and interpretations of the foreign policies of Presidents Mandela and Mbeki, this study is motivated by the primary aim to investigate the classification of their foreign policy within the broader framework of IR theory. This is done by sketching a brief overview of the IR theories of idealism, realism and constructivism, followed by an analysis of the foreign policies of these two statesmen in order to identify some of the principles that underpin them. Two case studies – Mandela's response to the ‘two Chinas’ question and Mbeki's policy of ‘quiet diplomacy’ towards Zimbabwe – are employed to highlight apparent irregularities with the two leaders’ perceived general foreign policy thrusts. It takes the form of a comparative study, and is conducted within the qualitative paradigm, with research based on secondary sources.

The findings show that, although the overarching foreign policy principles of these two former presidents can largely be understood on the basis of particular theoretical approaches, they neither acted consistently according to the assumptions of idealism or realism that are ascribed to them. The conclusion drawn is thus that categorising the foreign policies of presidents Mandela and Mbeki as idealist and realist, respectively, results in a simplistic understanding of the perspectives that inform these two statesmen, as well as the complexity of factors involved in foreign policymaking. More significantly, it is unhelpful in developing a better understanding of South Africa's foreign policy in the post-1994 period.

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Opsomming

Na 1994 het Suid-Afrikaanse buitelandse beleidsmakers die uitdaging in the gesig gestaar om ’n land wat vir baie jare geïsoleer is, as gevolg van die vorige regering se apartheidsbeleid, in die internasionale stelsel te her-integreer. Tydens hierdie proses om Suid-Afrika se buitelandse identiteit van die van ’n muishondstaat na die van ’n aangesiene internasionale speler te transformeer, meen sommige kommentators dat presidente Mandela en Mbeki se buitelandse beleid deur twee teenoorgestelde teorieë van Internasionale Betrekkinge (IB) – naamlik onderskeidelik idealisme en realisme – onderlê is.

In die lig van bogenoemde populêre aannames en interpretasies van die buitelandse beleide van hierdie twee presidente, is hierdie studie gemotiveer deur die primêre doel om die klassifisering van hul buitelandse beleid binne die breë raamwerk van teorieë van IB te ondersoek. Dit word gedoen aan die hand van ’n kort oorsig van die teorieë van idealisme, realisme en konstruktiwisme, gevolg deur ’n analise van die buitelandse beleide van hierdie twee staatsleiers, met die doel om die beginsels te identifiseer wat onderliggend daaraan is. Twee gevalletsudies – Mandela se reaksie op die ‘twee Sjinas’ kwessie en Mbeki se ‘stille diplomasie’ teenoor Zimbabwe – word gebruik om die oënskynlike onreëlmatighede in die twee leiers se algeme buitelandse beleidsrigtings uit te lig. Die studie is vergelykend, en is binne die kwalitatiewe paradigma onderneem, met navorsing grootliks op sekondêre bronne gebasseer.

Die bevindinge wys dat, alhoewel die oorhoofse buitelandse beleidsbeginsels van die twee voormalige presidente grootliks aan die hand van sekere teoretiese benaderings gesien kan word, het nie een konsekwent volgens die aannames van idealisme of realisme, wat aan hulle toegeskryf word, opgetree nie. Die gevolgtrekking is dus dat die klassifisering van die buitelandse beleid van presidente Mandela en Mbeki as onderskeidelik idealisties en realisties, ’n vereenvoudigde begrip van die perspektiewe wat hierdie twee staatsleiers se beleidsvorming onderlê, asook van die komplekse faktore wat by buitelandse beleidsmaking betrokke is, tot gevolg het. Verder help so ’n simplistiese klassifisering ons ook nie om ’n beter begrip van Suid-Afrikaanse beleid in die post-1994 tydperk te ontwikkel nie.

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Acknowledgements

This study could not have been possible without the involvement of certain people and institutions. Should they find here my heartfelt gratitude.

Almighty God for giving me the strength to complete my thesis.

My promoter, Dr Karen Smith, for her supervision and constant encouragement and her effort to make sure that I complete my thesis.

My parents, sisters, brothers, relatives and friends who have supported me during the course of my studies.

My fiancée, Marie-Noëlle Mambo, for her support.

My lecturers, my study colleagues, and all the staff members of the Department of Political Science at the University of Stellenbosch who made me feel welcome in the department and encouraged me in my studies.

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List of abbreviations

ANC African National Congress

AU African Union

BBWG Big Business Working Group CIO Central Intelligence Organisation DFA Department of Foreign Affairs

DG Director-General

DRC Democratic Republic of Congo DTI Department of Trade and Industry EPG Eminent Person Group

G8 Group of Eight

GEAR Growth, Employment and Redistribution GNU Government of National Unity

IGOs Intergovernmental Organisations IOs International Organisations IMF International Monetary Found

INGOs International Non-governmental Organisations IR International Relations

MDC Movement for Democratic Change MNCs Multinational Corporations

NAM Non-Aligned Movement

NEPAD New Partnership for Africa's Development NGOs Non-Governmental Organisations

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NPA National Prosecuting Authority OAU Organisation of African Unity PAC Pan-Africanist Congress

PCAS Policy Coordination and Advisory Service PRC People's Republic of China

RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme ROC Republic of China

SA South Africa

SACOB South African Chamber of Business SACP South African Communist Party

SADC Southern African Development Community SAIC South African Indian Congress

SANDF South African National Defence Force

UN United Nations

US United States

WTO World Trade Organisation

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background and Rationale

Following the first democratic elections, South Africa emerged from decades of international isolation due to its apartheid policies. Being one of the most important African countries in terms of the size of its population and economic strength, South Africa was challenged to construct new democratic institutions and an inclusive civic culture from the bitter legacy of decades of statutory racism and ideological division (Alden and le Pere, 2003:7). The most liberal of constitutions then replaced the narrow hegemony of apartheid, and formed the cornerstone upon which the African National Congress (ANC) leadership attempted to universalise the state and its institutions in conjunction with civil society.

Since 1994, the two first democratically elected presidents have been preoccupied with the construction of a new foreign policy to end many years of international isolation that the country went through (Mills, 1998: 72). In their process of transforming South Africa's foreign identity from a pariah state to an international player, some commentators contend that the foreign policies of presidents Mandela and Mbeki can be analysed according to two contrasting theories of International Relations (IR), namely, idealism and realism, respectively. Under President Mandela, the ANC's driving force was a great moral campaign through which it successfully fought to build a democratic society. Consequently, and without prior experience of governing, the ANC assumed that, having set South Africa to rights, it could make a similar contribution to the world, and so adopted an idealistic approach (Barber, 2005:1096). This hurried conclusion of the country's foreign policy under Mandela having been idealist seems to be based on the

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principles1 that Mandela laid out in 1993, which would give support to South Africa's future foreign policy (Mandela 1993).

Similarly, some critics view South Africa's foreign policy under Mbeki as essentially realist. This conclusion is largely a result of a critical analysis of both the ANC's commitment to political transformation that was proclaimed in 1999 by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) into the twin objectives of promoting wealth and security, and the government's dedication to becoming a real partner in Africa which is said to have been motivated by the desire to further the national interest. Alden and le Pere (2003:29) note that whilst Mandela advocated the promotion of moral values such as human rights, Mbeki, on the other hand, seemed to privilege material values like economic strength and military capacity.

1.2 Problem Statement

In the light of the above-stated popular assumptions and interpretations of South Africa's post-apartheid foreign policy, this study is motivated by the primary objective to find out whether the classification of Mandela and Mbeki as idealist and realist, respectively, is accurate.

1.3 Research Aims

This study will investigate the foreign policies of Mandela and Mbeki and attempt, using two case studies, to show that the classification of them as idealist and realist, respectively, reflects simplistic understandings of the perspectives that inform these two statesmen. This will be done by:

• Firstly, sketching a brief overview of the IR theories of idealism, realism and constructivism;

• Secondly, providing an overview of the foreign policies of these two statesmen in order to identify some of the principles that underpin them, and, using case studies, to explore the theoretical perspectives which we can use to explain their respective foreign policies;

1_{These included: the centrality of human rights to international relations that will extend beyond the political to}

include economic, social and environmental dimensions; the promotion of democracy worldwide; the support for justice and the respect for international law as a guide for the relations between nations; the promotion of peace as a goal to which all the nations in the world should strive through agreed non-violent mechanisms.

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• Using case studies to highlight apparent irregularities with the perceived general foreign policy thrusts of presidents Mandela and Mbeki and to answer the question whether the two case studies confirm that the classification of their foreign policies is a clear case of idealism versus realism;

• Presenting a conclusion arguing why the classification of Mandela and Mbeki is simplistic and inhibits our understanding of South Africa's foreign policy.

1.4 Research Methodology

This thesis takes the form of a comparative study, focusing on the similarities and differences between the foreign policies of presidents Mandela and Mbeki. Conducted within the qualitative paradigm, the study is mainly based on secondary sources of information, including books, academic journal articles, publications, newspaper articles, media reports and other relevant literature. The study consists mainly of a critical literature review, where theories of IR are applied to the existing literature and attempts at classification are assessed. Since 1994, South Africa's foreign policy has caught effusive attention in academic writing. The proposed study will thus focus on what has been published on this topic by scholars and researchers, using the case study method, which is justified on the basis that the area to be covered in this analysis is broad. Case study methods involve gathering information about a particular person, social setting, event, or group in order to help the researcher to effectively understand how it operates or functions. Its approach varies significantly from field to field. Given the versatility of the case study method, they may be rather narrow in their focus, or they may take a broad view on life and society (Berg, 1989:212). Researchers have different purposes for studying cases. Three different types of cases can be classified: intrinsic, instrumental, and collective case studies.

(1) Intrinsic case studies are undertaken when a researcher wants to better understand a particular case not because it represents other cases or because it illustrates some particular trait, characteristic, or problem, but rather because of its very uniqueness or its ordinariness that this case becomes interesting.

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(2) Instrumental case studies are cases examined to provide insight into some issue or to refine some theoretical explanation. In theses situations, the case will serve a supportive role, a background against which the actual research interests will play out.

(3) Collective case studies involve the extensive study of several instrumental cases. Their selection is intended to allow better understanding or perhaps an enhanced ability to theorise about larger collection of cases (Stake, cited in Berg, 1989:216-217).

By using the instrumental case study method, the examination done in this study will be confined to two particular examples, namely the ‘two Chinas’ question and the so-called ‘quiet diplomacy’ towards Zimbabwe.

1.5 Delimitation and Limitations of the Study

In terms of timeframe, the study looks only at the period from 1994 until 2008. This period has been chosen for two main reasons. First, Nelson Mandela came in power in 1994 after the first democratic elections. This not only ended the long period of political isolation, but also marked a major milestone on the road to the position that the country now enjoys in the international arena. Second, his successor, Thabo Mbeki, left office in 2008.

Due to the limited period of time available to undertake this study, the scope of this analysis cannot cover everything within the political reigns of these two statesmen. A broader and more comprehensive study with a longer time period for research will improve the quality and depth of the present work.

The study investigates South Africa's foreign policy from 1994 to 2008, and focuses on two case studies, namely: South Africa's response to the ‘two Chinas’ question and its policy of ‘quiet diplomacy’ towards Zimbabwe. The choice of the ‘two Chinas’ question and the crisis in Zimbabwe is motivated by the fact that they constitute examples that diverge from the idealist or realist frame ascribed to Mandela and Mbeki.

Another limitation to the study is the availability and accessibility of information. With regard to the ‘two Chinas’ question, the study has been limited by language constraints due to the fact that

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some literature is only available in Mandarin and Afrikaans. Due to these reasons, only English and French-language sources of information have been used. Moreover, because of the sensitivity of the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe, South African government publications regarding this matter have been limited.

1.6 Literature Review

The implementation and enforcement of apartheid rules by the National Party in South Africa led to strong criticisms on the part of the international community. Progressively, these criticisms induced the international community to condemn the system of apartheid as contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and the basic norms of international law. Subsequently, the political and economic isolation of the country began in earnest in the 1980s. Coupled with international pressure, this led to a negotiated transition, which culminated in South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, and the inauguration of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela as President of South Africa on 10 May of the same year.

One of the great advantages that the government elected in 1994 had over its forerunner was its collective recognition by the international community. Conscious of the role being played by a number of state members of the international community and the influence that they put into effect to transform the political environment of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, then leader of the ANC, in return declared on the eve of the 1994 presidential elections that human rights, and democratic values and norms would be the light that guides South Africa's future foreign policy (1993:87). According to Alden and le Pere (2003:12), “by incorporating the experiences of the anti-apartheid struggle into the conduct of foreign policy, the ANC leader sought to imbue the practice of international affairs with an orientation towards the promotion of civil liberties and democratisation”.

Mandela's declaration led to the conclusion that under his reign, South Africa's foreign policy was mainly idealist. This point of view is found in a number of newspapers. For example, in an article entitled 'Taking the moral high ground', Alan Sharpe declared that South Africa's foreign policy objectives were to influence world politics through helping to ensure that the world is more secure, peaceful, democratic, humane, equitable, and people-centred. Under Mandela's presidency, human rights became the cornerstone of South Africa's foreign policy.

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Sharpe argues that the reason why South Africa pursued these rights internationally, though the country knew that it would not benefit in terms of its own national interests, is that rights not defended are rights easily lost, and rights lost can lead to instability and violence. South Africa whose freedom came largely as a result of moral pressure being applied on the apartheid system felt morally obliged to help secure universal adherence to basic human rights, to help secure that people were not threatened by arbitrary and oppressive rule.

In another article entitled 'President Pragmatic', the author questioned the announcement made by President Nelson Mandela on his South-East Asia tour in 1997 that South Africa's foreign policy would not be influenced by the differences which exist between the internal policies of a particular country with itself. President Nelson Mandela held publicly that countries with a record of human rights violations had been accepted by the United Nations, the Commonwealth and the Non-Aligned Movement. “Why would we let ourselves depart from what international organisations are doing”? He asked. According to the author, this realist view of the world where trade and investment take precedence came as a surprise from a man whose foreign policy had always been driven by idealist principles. By adopting pragmatic foreign policy principles which, as the author comments, are more concerned about prosperity, President Mandela was actually turning his back on principles such as human rights, democracy and the rule of law which, as we will see in the second chapter, are very important to idealist adherents.

In response to critics who condemned President Mandela and his government for having an ambiguous foreign policy, Blade Nzimande2 insisted that the ANC had an open and transparent approach to international policy based on promoting human rights, peace and democracy3. Nzimande's assertion was confirmed by Barber who declares that the approach adopted by the ANC under the leadership of Mandela could broadly be classified as idealism (2004:92).

Taken as a whole, the above suggests that for a great number of observers, South Africa's foreign policy under President Nelson Mandela was essentially idealist. For some others, however, the assumptions stated by President Mandela as South Africa's foreign policy principles and his ambition to promote human rights, peace, democracy and the rule of law worldwide cover a

2_{At the time member of the ANC national executive committee's international affairs sub-committee.} 3_{Blade Nzimande, 'Too many ‘straw’ Mandelas', published in The Star (SA), 22 March 1996.}

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number of inconsistencies in the implementation of the new South Africa's foreign policy. Analysing the post-apartheid foreign policy, a number of authors such as Alden and le Pere; Spence; Johnson; Hamill and Kodjo have shown that considering President Nelson Mandela as mostly idealist is misleading. A closer look at South Africa's foreign policy under his presidency reveals a gap between rhetoric and actions. According to these authors, President Nelson Mandela has often acted in a realist manner that is, as we will see later, contrary to the way idealists followers operate.

Alden and le Pere (2003) argue that “in the implementation of foreign policy, financial, commercial, political, and defence interests supplanted the new government's carefully crafted ethical dimension… More than not, they add, this produced realist and pragmatic responses where a critical and principled position might have been more prudent”. As examples to illustrate the gap between the principles and practice of foreign policy under Mandela, Alden and le Pere name the conflict between East Timor and Indonesia; South Africa's relations with Malaysia, China and Taiwan; the Nigeria's political crisis in 1995; the political crisis in Zaire in 1997; the military intervention in Lesotho in 1998; and the controversial arms sales. In all of these cases, Mandela acted in a realist manner, privileging national interests and the use of force.

The question of the principles and practice of South Africa's foreign policy under President Mandela was also raised by Spence, Johnson, and Hamill in Broderick et al. (2001). These three authors provide us with a critical analysis of the government's commitment to human rights. Spence, for example, notes that the major preoccupation of South Africa's foreign policy under Mandela was to weld South Africa's economy into a global marketplace which rewards liberalisation and deregulation and penalises rigidity, inflexibility in the labour market and continued state control over particular assets. According to him, the government elected in 1994 had to face many economic problems inherited from the apartheid system. These included battered sanctions, negative rates of growth, high unemployment and an ever-increasing large burden of public debt. Given that foreign policy begins at home, the new regime had to find ways to create an environment that could help them to further the country's economic interests in order to reverse the situation in which they found themselves. This idea is also shared by Kodjo (1999) who argues that South Africa's desire to cooperate with its neighbours and other African countries was motivated by its desire to further its economic interests. Its president, Nelson

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Mandela, became a kind of representative of South African farmers and businessmen in Africa. This hegemonic role seems to be corroborated by Ahwireng-Obeng and McGowan (2001) in their article entitled “Partner or Hegemon? South Africa in Africa”.

The government's commitment to issues involving a human rights dimension is also called into question by Johnston. He identifies a big gap between the government's rhetoric and practice. In relation to the crisis in Nigeria, the arms sales to conflict zones, the 'two Chinas' question, the war in Zaire, as well as the land distribution question which has plagued Zimbabwe politics, Johnson attributes the government's failure to the fact that its Discussion Document on Foreign

Policy (September 1996) raises issues of human rights and democracy with salience, but with

neither adequate justification nor an explicit framework for management of such issues in practice.

Hamill, on the other hand, sheds some light on South African foreign policy-making process and the contradictory forces at work there. Hamill is sceptical about the post-apartheid regime's commitment to human rights in the region. His scepticism comes from the contradiction existing between the principle and the culture prevailing in the ANC-led administration. As an example, Hamill names the Defence Ministry. He comments that in the early years of the post-apartheid regime, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) hierarchy and its political masters stressed the need for strong armed forces equipped and ready to meet a conventional military threat from within the region. The then Defence Minister, Joe Modise, declared that “Peace was the ideal situation but ideal situations were hard to find in the real world” (Hamill, 2001:32). Modise's statement followed the one made by President Nelson Mandela himself two weeks after his inauguration. President Nelson Mandela proclaimed that he “saw nothing wrong with arms sales” which, according to him, were for the purpose of defending the sovereignty and the integrity of a country (Hamill, 2001:34). For Hamill, these two statements were clearly based on the realist principle of self-defence which is contrary to the collective defence advocated by idealists.

Whilst the early era following the South African election of April 1994 may be seen as a period where the country was preoccupied with rehabilitating its relations with the international community, the need to develop a cogent foreign policy more reliant on process than

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personalities and driven less by single events than broad trends became more acute (Mills, 2000:299). Towards this end, the new incoming president initiated a series of exercises that resulted not only in the reformulation of the DFA's vision and mission statement, but also in the restructuring of the foreign policy decision-making body. By doing so, Mbeki sought to develop a foreign policy based more on reality than on faith, with a stronger sense of purpose and vision. These changes earned the post-Mandela government foreign policy the reputation of being realist driven. This viewpoint is found in a number of publications by Butler, Hlela, Williams, and Hughes. The reasons brought forward to justify this conclusion are diverse. They include the adoption in 1999 of ‘security and wealth creation’ as the DFA's new leitmotif and fundamental purpose; the government's dedication to becoming a real partner in Africa and supporting regional economic development processes; and the centralisation of the foreign policy decision-making body in the presidency's office. According to these authors, the objective behind all these changes was articulated in ‘realist’ terms as promoting South Africa's national interest internationally.

These views will be explored in more detail in the chapters that follow.

1.7 Chapter Outline

Chapter 2 presents the theoretical framework which informs this study. The importance of this

section relies on the fact that all the discussions of foreign policies and international relations proceed upon theoretical assumptions (Bull, cited in Burchill and Linklater, 2005:3). This chapter, therefore, intends to provide the reader with the theoretical tools for understanding general patterns underlying the world of international politics, and offers an overview of the International Relations theories of idealism and realism with a particular focus on their characteristics. This will be used in subsequent chapters to make identify the underlying worldviews which informed the foreign policies of presidents Mandela and Mbeki. In order to gain a greater depth of understanding about Mbeki's foreign policy, especially with regard to his policy of ‘quiet diplomacy’ towards Zimbabwe, the analysis also takes a brief look at the constructivist approach to International Relations.

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Chapter 3 provides an overview of South African foreign policy under Mandela, applying the

IR theory expounded in chapter2. In the last part of this chapter, an attempt is made to interpret Mandela's response to the so-called ‘two-Chinas’ question within the theoretical framework of idealism vs. realism.

Chapter 4 explores and assesses South Africa's foreign policy principles and actions under

president Mbeki from 1999 to 2008 through the analytical lenses of IR theory. The chapter ends with an analysis of Mbeki's policy of ‘quiet diplomacy towards Zimbabwe’, informed by the constructivist approach.

Chapter 5 collates the findings and conclusions drawn from chapters 3 and 4, and makes some

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CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 Introduction

This chapter purports to present some general information regarding the context within which the following chapters may be read. Its purpose is twofold. Firstly, to provide a brief overview of the development and purpose of International Relations theory. Secondly, to offer a description of the main purposes that International Relations theory pursues. Thirdly, to explain the core assumptions of the three approaches that will be used as a framework in this study, namely, idealism, realism, and constructivism.

2.2 International Relations Theory: birth and development

The horrors of the First World War opened new perspectives in the way states conducted their relations with one another in the international arena. Before this, a majority of international lawyers believed that the right to declare war without any external approval was inherent in the nature of state sovereignty (Brown and Ainley, 2005:9). Theologians and canon lawyers of the Middle Ages considered wars as justum, that is to say, regular and lawful. At that time, wars were supposed to be used as a means to uphold the law where some wrong had been done. For that specific reason, theologians and canon lawyers tried to establish the exercise of war as a legal doctrine and an ethical principle (Brierly, 1945:19; Dugard, 2005:501). But, progressively, some states turned them into means to get what they wanted from others. Consequently, states that hoped to be victors initiated wars for the reason that benefits were superior to potential losses. Wars were no longer initiated on the basis of "just causes" like self-defence, the recovery of property, the punishment of wrongful acts committed by the state against which war was made, but on the basis of a simple cost-benefit analysis.

The consequences of the First World War were indeed disastrous not only to the states that were attacked, but also to its initiators. Hundred millions of people died, regimes fell, and economies

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collapsed. How could such a disaster happen, and what solutions needed to be adopted in order to prevent it from happening again? These were the questions that early students of International Relations had to deal with. This step marked the beginning of the theorising about international relations.

The importance of theorising about international relations has to do with the fact that phenomena we need to investigate do not speak for themselves. Halliday (cited in Burchill and Linklater, 2005:11) gives three reasons to explain why theories are needed. First, there needs to be some preconceptions of which facts are significant and which are not. Second, any set of facts, even if accepted as true and significant, can yield different interpretations. Third, no human agent, academic or not, can rest content with facts alone because all social activity involves moral questions which cannot be decided by facts. In sum, we theorise because sometimes we ask questions that we are not able to answer without previous reflection, without an appropriate abstract thought.

However, it should be noted that all theories of International Relations also called paradigms, traditions, perspectives, discourses, images, or schools of thought do not pursue the same objectives. Drawing from the works done by other thinkers, Burchill and Linklater (2005:11) provide us with a list of eight different purposes that theories pursue:

• Theories explain the laws of international politics or recurrent patterns of national behaviour (Waltz 1979);

• Theories attempt either to explain and predict behaviour or to understand the world ‘inside the heads’ of actors (Hollis and Smith 1990);

• Theories are traditions of speculation about relations between states which focus on the struggle for power, the nature of international society and the possibility of a world community (Wight 1991);

• Theories are empirical data to test hypotheses about the world such as the absence of war between liberal-democratic states (Doyle 1983);

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• Theories analyse and try to clarify the use of concepts such as the balance of power (Butterfied and Wight 1966);

• Theories criticise forms of domination and perspectives which make the socially constructed and changeable seem natural and unalterable (critical theory);

• Theories reflect on how the world ought to be organised and analyse ways in which various conceptions of human rights or global social justice are constructed and defended (normative theory or international ethics);

• Theories reflect on the process of theorising itself; they analyse epistemological claims about how human beings know the world and ontological claims about what the world ultimately consists of-for example, whether it basically consists of sovereign states or individuals with rights against and obligations to the rest of humanity (constitutive theory).

As the above suggests, different kinds of theories are engaged in the field of International Relations. The diversity of theory comes from the nature of the question we ask. Sometimes, the question is about how things work, or why things happen. Sometimes, the question is about what we should do, either in the sense of what action is instrumental to bringing about a particular kind of result or in the sense of what action is morally right. Sometimes, the question is about

what something or other means, how it is to be interpreted (Brown and Ainley 2005:7). 2.3 The link between International Relations and Foreign Policy

The field of International Relations can be defined as the study of how authority and/or power is used to organise and manage trans-border relations between actors, and how this contributes to the establishment, maintenance and transformation of order in the world system (McGowan, Cornelissen and Nel, (2006:12). These relations may involve states, in any combination of two or more, or may exclude states, or may involve states and actors that are not states such as intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and multinational corporations (MNCs).

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Foreign Policy, on the other hand, is the sum of official external relations conducted by an independent actor (usually a state) in international relations (Hill, 2003:3). Hill explains that the phrase ‘an independent actor’ enables the inclusion of phenomena such as the European Union; external relations are ‘official’ to allow the inclusion of output from all parts of the governing mechanisms of the state or enterprise while also maintaining parsimony with respect to the vast number of international transactions now being conducted; policy is the ‘sum’ of these official relations because otherwise every particular action could be seen as a separate foreign policy; the policy is ‘foreign’ because the world is still more separated into distinctive communities than it is a single, homogenising entity. These entities need strategies for coping with foreigners (or strangers) in their various aspects.

Defined like this, the idea of foreign policy implies that everything that a given state generates officially at the international level takes into consideration the values and principles that its political leaders wish to display. From these two definitions, one can say that International Relations and Foreign Policy are closely linked. While the former scrutinises trans-borders relations between all international actors– including states, INGOs, NGOs, and MNCs and tries to understand what influence these relations may have in the establishment, maintenance and transformation of order in the world system, the later seems to be specifically interested in how, officially, states interact with one another. There are various debates about whether foreign policy is a distinct field of study, or whether it forms part of the broader fields of Political Science and International Relations. This discussion is beyond the scope of this thesis. For the purpose of this study, it is assumed that foreign policy is a subfield of International Relations, and can therefore be analysed using the theoretical tools provided by the overarching discipline. As stated above, the present study intends to investigate South Africa's post-apartheid foreign policies. In so doing, it will try, using two case studies, to show that the classification of Nelson Mandela as an idealist and Thabo Mbeki as a realist reflect simplistic understandings of the perspectives that inform these two statesmen. The next part of this chapter looks at the characteristics of the theories that are going to be used in the rest of the study. Bearing in mind that the field of IR theory is vast and includes a number of different perspectives, but because the purpose of our work is to determine whether the classification made by some South African foreign policy analysts is appropriate, we will firstly look only at the two theories that presidents

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Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki have been associated with, namely idealism and realism, respectively.

2.4 Idealism

Besides the fact that Britain, France, and Germany were to be blamed for the destruction on the battlefields of the First World War, there came a realisation that something wrong with the system of International Relations that needed to be revised. Carr (1966:2) revealed that the war of 1914-18 brought an end to the idea that war was a matter which affects solely professional soldiers and dissipated the corresponding impression that international politics could safely be left in the hands of professional diplomats. Subsequently, a great number of thinkers such as Sirs Alfred Zimmern and Philip Noel-Baker and politicians, mostly from America and Britain, gave thought as to how to change the system to prevent a recurrence (Burchill and Linklater, 2005:6). For these thinkers, revising international relations was necessary because the old assumptions and prescriptions of power were flawed. The rationale here was that peace would come about only if the classical balance of power were replaced by a system of collective security (including the idea of the rule of law) in which states transferred domestic concepts and practices to the international sphere.

From the early 1900s to the late 1930, liberal thinking on international relations impacted significantly on the theory and practice of international relations. Its adherents were motivated by the desire to prevent wars. The First World War shifted liberal thinking towards the recognition that peace is not a natural condition, as its followers thought, but one that needed to be constructed and protected.

Writers such as Sir Alfred Zimmern, S.H. Bailey, Philip Noel-Baker, and David Miltrany in the United Kingdom, and James T. Showell, Pitman Potter, and Parker T. Moon in the United States, to whom the term idealists was applied, assumed that the system of international relations that had given rise to the Great War (1914-1918) was “capable of being transformed into a fundamentally more peaceful and just world order; that under the impact of the awakening of democracy, the growth of the international mind, the development of the League of Nations, the good works of men of peace or the enlightenment spread by their own teachings, it was in fact being transformed; and that their responsibility as students of international relations was to assist

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this march of progress to overcome the ignorance, the prejudices, the ill-will, and the sinister interests that stood in its way” (Bull, 2001:58).

Two points can be raised from Bull's quote. Firstly, human society is not "naturally" peace-loving as it seems to be at first. Among the conditions that lead to a peaceful state are the rule of law and democracy. In their attempts to find out what went wrong in 1914-1918, idealists observed that a number of states were led by undemocratic regimes. They came to the conclusion that people do not just go to war, but that war erupts because people are led into it by militarists or autocrats, or because their legitimate aspirations to nationhood are blocked by undemocratic, multinational, imperial systems (Brown and Ainley, 2005:21). One of the solutions to prevent wars from happening was promoting, at the national level, democratic political systems, that is, liberal-democratic, constitutional regimes, and the principle of self-determination.

Secondly, idealists criticised secret diplomacy, secret treaties, and the balance of power that characterised the pre-1914 international system. The mixture of unconstitutional regimes and the anarchic character of the international system created an atmosphere favourable to wars. To eradicate these destructive confrontations, idealists held that new principles of world politics were essential. Collective security and international sanctions were seen as necessary elements of a new world order characterised by the greater interdependence of peoples (Linklater, 2001:221). United States President Woodrow Wilson, one of the well-known advocates of an international authority for the management of international relations, proclaimed that peace could only be secured with the creation of an international institution to regulate the international anarchy. For President Wilson, security could not be left to secret bilateral diplomatic deals and a blind faith in the balance of power. Like domestic society, international society must have a system of governance which has democratic procedures for coping with disputes, and an international force which could be mobilised if negotiations failed (Dunne, 2001:167). Deeply impressed by the destructive character of modern warfare shown in World War I, President Wilson, in his 'Fourteen points' speech that he gave to the American Congress in January 1917, came up with a set of idealistic political beliefs which, later, gave birth to a distinctive idealist theory of international relations clearly different from realism in the explanations that it offers for events

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and tendencies (Nel, 2006:31). Among the idealistic political beliefs that President Wilson spoke about are:

5. Democracy should be promoted in all countries because it is one of the well-established generalisations of international relations that democracies do not fight one another. The institutions of democracy, namely free public opinion and parliamentary accountability, are important controls over the dangerous ambitions of national leaders. Democracies share the same values and seldom have reason to engage in ideological competition. 6. ‘Self-determination’ of subjected peoples and nations should be encouraged. When

colonial peoples or minority national groups are able to rule over themselves, the destructive forces of nationalism are constrained.

7. Lowering barriers between countries encourages interdependence and raises the costs of conflict.

8. Strengthening international law and creating international organisations will also promote peace and co-operation (Nel, 2006:32).

Proposed by President Wilson in 1917 as instruments to end destructive conflicts and promote peace and co-operation among states, the principles still form part of the assumptions upon which the International Relations theory of idealism is based (Viotti and Kauppi, 1993; Nel, 2006). They also formed the basis for the founding of the League of Nations, which was created at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919-1920 with primary responsibility to provide the collective security that nations tried, in vain, to find under the old system based on the balance of power. The main assumptions of idealism are outlined below. This is important as it imperative to assessing what aspects of South Africa's foreign policy under president Mandela could legitimately be characterised as idealist, and whether, in fact, idealism was the main driving force behind the country's international relations during this time.

Firstly, idealists recognise the fact that international politics take place in an anarchical arena. However, they do not agree that the absence of a central authority above all actors condemns them to a perpetual competition of one against all, as contended by realists. While they do believe that there is competition in international system, they hold, as Nel (2006:33) states, that

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humans learn from their experience. Once they realise that all-out confrontation on a specific issue leads only to mutual disappointment and losses, they become willing to consider options that provide some chances for mutual gains, even if these gains are not the maximum the states aimed for at the beginning.

Relatedly, although the international system is anarchic (without a ruler), it has never been anomic (without rules) (Little, 2001:299). Little considers that an important dimension of globalisation has been the establishment of worldwide regimes to foster rule-governed activity within the international system. As a result, there is now no international intercourse devoid of regimes, where states are not circumscribed, to some extent or other, by the existence of mutually accepted sets of rules. In connection with this, idealists posit that the absence of war cannot always be explained in terms of an existence of a balance of power. It can also be the result of the fact that states share a number of values. This explains why idealists tend to favour co-operation between states on an increasing range of issues such as global security, health, economic development, environment, and so forth. But, for them, co-operation between states needs to take place in a well structured environment in which states can trust each others. In this regard, the respect for international law and international organisations appears to be of a great importance.

Secondly, idealists assert that morality plays an important role in international affairs. They point to the historical record to prove their point. Since the establishment of the modern state system, states have established many international moral principles and regimes through co-operation with one another. Religious freedom has been recognised, slavery has been outlawed and abolished, humane rules of warfare have been accepted, a universal Declaration of Human Rights has been accepted by most states in the world, torture has been outlawed, and the world community has taken steps to punish perpetrators of genocide (Nel, 2006:34). The idea that the state should respect the human rights of its citizens, as Schmitz and Sikkink (2002:518) declare, is an old one dating back to the struggles for religious freedom and the secular writings of Kant, Locke and Rousseau. The US Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizens were the most significant early transactions of efforts to give the individual special and inalienable protections. What has emerged more recently, Schmitz and Sikkink argue, is the idealist-driven idea that not only states, but individuals, can be subjects in

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international law and that human rights should be an integral part of foreign policy and

international relations.

Thirdly, idealists claim that non-state actors are also important entities in international

politics. Idealists agree that the state is a very important actor in international affairs, but they

refuse to regard it as necessarily the most important. In today's world of diverse and complex challenges, global governance involves a variety of international actors – including states, IGOs, NGOs, MNCs, transnational social movements, and individuals. In light of how the balance between states and non-state actors has shifted over the past few decades, idealists believe that any interpretation of international relations must now take the significance of non-state actors. Fourthly, idealists maintain that the agenda of international politics is extensive and not

dominated primarily by military-security issues as suggested by realists. For idealist

adherents, foreign affairs agendas have expanded and diversified over recent decades such that economic and social issues are often at the forefront of foreign policy debates (Viotti and Kauppi, 1993:8). In connection with this, Henry Alfred Kissinger, former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, himself a realist, said in 1975 that:

Progress in dealing with the traditional agenda is no longer enough. A new and unprecedented kind of issues has emerged. The problems of energy, resources, environment, pollution, the uses of spaces and the seas now rank with questions of military security, ideology, and territorial rivalry which have traditionally made up the diplomatic agenda (cited in Keohane and Nye, 1997:3).

As the above suggests, there is an increasingly wide-ranging agenda in international affairs, with political, economic, and social issues that are as, or more, important than military-security issues. In summary, democracy, the rule of law, human rights, collective security, and co-operation are some of the subjects that are very important in the idealist lexicon.

After the collapse of the League of Nations, which, sometimes in the history of the field of international relations, is mistakenly considered as the end of the idealism tradition by some writers, certain fundamental idealist principles remained. A number of these fundamental tenets

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constitute the core principles of what subsequently became known as liberal institutionalism. In short, liberal institutionalists, like idealists before them, insist on international institutions to carry out a number of tasks that the state cannot perform on its own. By so doing, they have been in the process of perpetuating the idealist tradition.

2.5 Realism

In his book entitled ‘The twenty years' crisis: 1919-1939’, Carr asserts that the three essential tenets implicit in Machiavelli’s doctrine constitute the foundation stones of the realist philosophy. “First, history is a sequence of cause and effect, whose course can be analysed and understood by intellectual effort, but not (as the idealists, or utopians as he renamed them, believe) directed by imagination. Second, theory does not (as the utopians assume) create practice, but practice theory. Third, politics are not (as the utopians pretend) a function of ethics, but ethics of politics”. From this quote, Carr seems to suggest that the purpose of a theory should be to collect, classify and analyse existing facts in order to draw interferences, and not the other way around as, according to him, idealists did.

In the same vein, Morgenthau (1973:3) notes that the test by which a theory must be judged is not a priori and abstract but empirical and pragmatic. A theory, according to Morgenthau, must be judged not by some preconceived abstract principle or concept unrelated to reality, but by its purpose, which is to bring order and meaning to the plethora of phenomena that exist in the real world.

If the purpose of a theory is to collect and analyse existing facts, this, according to Carr (1966:5), does not apply to idealism. Carr explains that idealists paid little attention to existing facts or the analyse of cause and effect, but rather devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the elaboration of visionary projects.

The combination of the decline of liberal thinking in the late 1930s and the outbreak of World War II (signalling to many the failure of idealism) revitalised the realist perception of the role of power, defined as capability relative to other states. Keohane (1986:9) states that since 1945, discussions of foreign policy have been carried on in the language of political realism _that is, the language of power and interests rather than ideals or norms. In the same vein, Morgenthau

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characterises international politics as the struggle for power. According to him, this could be understood by assuming that statesmen “think and act in terms of interest defined as power” (1966:29).

The idea of power being the most important thing in international relations lasted until the Cold War (mid-1940s-early 1990s). Despite the fact that the Cold War was a period of conflict, tension and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, no real war occurred during that period. Many realists attributed the absence of war to the bipolar nature of the post-war international system. With the end of the Cold War, most realists agreed that bipolarity had come to an end, although they disagreed about when and why it happened.

Drawing on classical realism's apparent failure to develop an operational measure of polarity that could distinguish cause from effect, Waltz built a formal deductive theory of international relations which he called neorealism. Waltz's theory emphasises the importance of the structure (anarchy) of the international system and its role as the primary determinant of state behaviour. Neorealism is distinctive from traditional or classical realism in a number of ways. Lamy (2001:185-186) mentions three of them. Firstly, neorealists believe that the effects of structure are as important as the actions and interactions of states in the international system. According to Waltz, structure is defined by the ordering principle of the international system, which is anarchy, and the distribution of capabilities across units, which are states. For neorealist adherents, these two elements participate in shaping all foreign policy choices and, therefore, must be considered in our attempts to explain international politics.

Secondly, contrary to realists who see power as an end in itself, neorealists think that power is more than the accumulation of military resources and the ability to use this power to coerce and control other states in the system. In the neorealist lexicon, power is simply the combined capabilities of a state. States are differentiated in the system by their power and not by their function. Power gives a state a place or position in the international system and that shapes the state's behaviour.

Thirdly, neorealists reject classical realist's view on how states react to the condition of anarchy. Lame explains that to classical realists, anarchy is a condition of the system, and states react to it

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according to their size, location, domestic politics, and leadership qualities. Neorealists, in contrast, suggest that anarchy defines the system. All states are functionally similar units, meaning that they all experience the same constraints presented by anarchy and strive to maintain their position in the system. Consequently, neorealists believe that what results in differences in policy between states is the combination of differences in their power and capabilities.

The importance of Waltz's theory, as Keohane (1986:15) points it, lies less in his initiation of a new line of theoretical inquiry or speculation than in his attempt to systematise political realism into a rigorous, deductive systemic theory of international politics. In this sense, the Waltzian synthesis is referred to as neorealism to indicate both its intellectual affinity with the classical realism of E.H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau, and Reinhold Niebuhr and its elements of originality and distinctiveness.

Despite these differences, it is possible to identify certain fundamental assumptions which are common to all realists–whether classical neo-, or other.

Firstly, realists regard the state as the major actor in international relations. The concept of statism, which they utilise to indicate this reality, refers to the idea of the state as the legitimate representative of the collective will of the people. For realists, states represent the key unit of analysis. Therefore, they conclude, the study of international relations is the study of relations among these units (Viotti and Kauppi, 1993:5). The legitimacy of the state is what enables it to put into effect its authority internally in the making and enforcement of law (Dunne and Schmidt, 2001:143). The meaning of the sovereign state is inextricably tied with the use of force. In connection with this, Dunne and Schmidt declare that those who see anarchy as merely a chaos or a state of lawlessness are misleading. The existence of sovereign authority implies that individuals need not to worry about their own security, since this is provided for them in the form of a system of law, police protection, prisons, and other coercive measures. At the international level, anarchy has to be seen simply as a lack of central authority above all sovereign states.

Based on the argument given above, realists maintain that there is a distinction between

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power-seeking ambition of citizens in a less violent direction, the latter is much less able to do so. This also explains why, at the international level, states compete with other states for interests, security, power, and so on because more for one means less for another. In an anarchic system, each sovereign state tends to think about itself as its own highest authority.

The idea of states being the main actors in the realm of international politics goes against one of the principles stated by the idealists. Idealists believe that the establishment of international institutions is one of the conditions to guarantee a peaceful world. Realists, on the contrary, think that the only actors that really count in the landscape of modern global politics are states. Two reasons have been given to support this statement. Firstly, according to realists, international organisations, transnational corporations, and religious denominations, like all other ideologies, rise and fall. Secondly, realists believe that non-state actors are not autonomous from state

power (Dunne and Schmidt, 2001:151). In his well-known essay entitled “The False Promise of

International Institutions”, John Mearsheimer (1994:7) examines the claim made by some international relations theories (including liberal institutionalism) that institutions push states away from war and promote peace. He comes to the conclusion that institutions have minimal

influence on state behaviour and, therefore, cannot prevent states from behaving the way they

do to secure and maximise their interests.

Secondly, realists consider the survival of the state as the most important thing. The idea of ensuring the survival of the state by all means derives from the doctrine of raison d'état, or reason of state. The point made by realists related to this is that outside the boundaries of a state, there is a condition of anarchy, meaning that international politics take place in an environment that has no authority above the individual sovereign states. Realists believe that in a world where there is no authority, the first priority of state leaders is to guarantee the survival of their state. This is merely because if the state's existence was to be jeopardised, all its other interests such as economic, environmental, and humanitarian would not stand a chance of ever being realised (Dunne and Schmidt, 2001:144). But, given that the survival of the state cannot be guaranteed under anarchy, state leaders are frequently obliged to cheat, lie, and kill if necessary to secure their states.

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From the above, one can understand that power is the key concept in the realist lexicon. Realists believe that only states with power have a better chance of surviving than states with less power because, as Morgenthau (1966:29) points out, international politics, like national politics, is a struggle for power. Realists focus on material power – mainly in the form of military strength. According to Viotti and Kauppi (1993:56), however, economic factors are also very important to realists because they affect national power or capabilities. These two authors observe that industrial countries that effectively combine technology with capital, skilled labour and raw materials not only enjoy a higher standard of living but also tend to have more leverage in their relations with others. In addition to trade, financial, and monetary influence that flows from a strong economy, military capabilities are usually greatest in states with advanced industrial economies.

Realist believe that states are self-interested oriented and that their behaviour is largely

shaped by the anarchic structure of the international system (Mearsheimer, 1994:5). For this

reason, they recommend states to make use of all necessary means to safeguard or increase their interests while dealing with others. In short, realism emphasises the constraints on politics imposed by human selfishness (‘egoism’) and the absence of international government (‘anarchy’), which require the primacy in all political life of power and security (Gilpin, cited in Donnelly 2005). In this regard, unlike idealists, realists do not believe in the natural harmony

of interests among states.

Thirdly, realists are very sceptical about the role of morality in international affairs. Realist supporters frequently speak of a dual moral standard: one moral standard for individual citizens living inside the state and a different standard for the state in its external relations with other states. The exclusion of morality from foreign policy is an important feature of realism. Beyond the appeals to anarchy and egoism, many realists argue that morality is inappropriate in foreign policy because international politics is a distinct realm of human endeavour with its own standards and rules (Donnelly, 2000:161-164). For realist adherents, the nature of the environment within which international politics take place has created a necessary condition for state leaders to act in a way that would be unacceptable or immoral for the individual. For this reason, realists consider the act of cheating, lying and killing as moral duties of state leaders,

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since their task is to preserve the life of the state and the ethical community it contains (Dunne and Schmidt, 2001:144).

Fourthly, the anarchic character of the international system has given an exclusive emphasis to

the principle of self-help (or self-interest). According to Waltz (1979:102) “the state among

states conducts its affairs in brooding shadow of violence”. This is, he explains, because “some states may at any time use force, all states must be prepared to do so or live at the mercy of their militarily more vigorous neighbours”. Among states, the state of nature is a state of war. Contrary to domestic politics where a wide range of institutions and mechanisms seek to ensure the welfare of individuals, at the international level these are either non-existent or extremely weak. Related to this, realists posit that each state actor is responsible for ensuring their well-being and survival. In this sense, they do not think it is prudent for a state to entrust its safety and survival to another actor or international institution such as the League of Nations or the United Nations because, as Machiavelli stated, today's friend can quickly become tomorrow's enemy (Dunne and Schmidt, 2001:144).

The principle of self-help is also strengthened by the fact that realists view the state as a unitary actor, that is to say that it faces the world as an integrated unit (Viotti and Kauppi, 1993:32). The idea behind this is that political differences within the state are ultimately resolved authoritatively such that the government of the state speaks with one voice for the state as a whole. This emphasis on the unitary nature has led to the belief that the state is essentially a rational actor. A rational foreign policy decision-making process, as Viotti and Kauppi explain, “would include a statement of objectives, consideration of all feasible alternatives in terms of existing capabilities available to the state, the relative likelihood of attaining these various objectives under consideration, and the benefits or cost associated with each alternative”. In brief, it assumes that any chosen behaviour can be understood as optimising material self-interest (Neuman, 1998:5.)

2.6 Constructivism

The end of the Cold War undermined the explanatory pretensions of neorealists and neoliberals, neither of which had predicted, nor could adequately comprehend, the systemic transformations reshaping the global order. It also undermined the critical theorists' assumption that theory drove

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practice in any narrow or direct fashion, as global politics increasingly demonstrated dynamics that contradicted realist expectations and prescriptions. The end of the Cold War thus opened a space for alternative explanatory perspectives and prompted critically inclined scholars to move away from a narrowly defined meta-theoretical critique (Reus-Smit, 2005:195). By the beginning of the 1990s, a new generation of young scholars emerged and initiated a new line of enquiry or speculation about world politics called constructivism. The writings of Friedrich Kratochwil (1989), Nicholas Onuf (1989) and Alexander Wendt (1987, 1992) established constructivist ideas as a genuinely radical alternative to conventional IR theories (Brown and Ainley, 2005:49). The debate between neorealists and neoliberals has been based on a shared commitment to rationalism. Like all social theories, rational choice directs us to ask some questions and not others, treating the identities and interests of agents as exogenously given and focusing on how the behaviour of agents generates outcomes. As such, rationalism offers a fundamentally behavioural conception of both processes and institutions (Wendt, 1992:615). Its failure to explain systemic transformations that occurred in the 1990s encouraged this new generation of scholars to re-examine old questions and issues long viewed through neorealist and neoliberal lenses. These scholars challenge the assumptions of rationalism, particularly the notion of an unchanging reality of international politics. Anarchy, as Zehfuss (2005:3-4) declares, is not an unavoidable feature of international reality; it is, in Wendt's famous words, “what states make of it”. It follows from this that practice influences outcome. This leads constructivist followers to the conclusion that the social world is constructed, not given. States may be self-interested but they continuously (re) define what that means. In other words, the identities and interests of states that rationalists take as given and which they see as resulting in international relations are not in fact given but are things that states have created (Smith, 2001:244).

Despite the divisions amongst constructivists regarding certain issues, all of them have, according to Reus-Smit (2005:196), sought to articulate and explore three core ontological propositions about social life, propositions which, they claim, illuminate more about world politics than rival rationalist assumptions. First, to the extent that structures can be said to shape the behaviour of social and political actors, be they individuals or states, constructivists hold that

normative or ideational structures are just as important as material structures. Where

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argue that systems of shared ideas, beliefs and values also have structural characteristics, and that they exert a powerful influence on social and political action. This, they argue, is because (1) “material resources only acquire meaning for human action through the structure of shared knowledge in which they are embedded” (Wendt, cited in Adler, 2002:100), and (2) “normative and ideational factors are thought to shape the social identities of political actors”. In this sense, social facts, which are facts only by human agreement and which account for the majority of the fact studied in IR, differ from other physical facts, because unlike the latter, their existence depends on human consciousness and language (Adler, 2002:100).

In the same vein, Brown and Ainley (2005:49) posit that mistaking a social fact for a brute fact is a cardinal error, because it leads to the ascription of a natural status to conditions that have been produced and may be, in principle, open to change. For Brown and Ainley, if we treat ‘anarchy’ as a given, something that conditions state action without itself being conditioned by state action, we will miss the point that ‘anarchy’ is, as Wendt declares, what states make of it and that it does not, as such, dictate any particular course of action. In the field of IR, anarchy means no centralised political authority above sovereign states’ but does not, though it may, mean chaos. Viewed in this context, the possibility exists that within an anarchical framework norms can

emerge.

Second, contrary to rationalists who believe that actors' interests are exogenously determined, meaning that actors, be they individuals or states, encounter one another with a pre-existing set of preferences, constructivists argue that understanding how actors develop their interests is

crucial to explaining a wide range of international political phenomena that rationalists

ignore or misunderstand. In order to explain interest formation, constructivists focus on social identities of individuals or states.

Third, constructivists assert that agents and structures are mutually constituted. Normative and ideational structures may well condition the identities and interests of actors, but, as Reus-Smit remarks, those structures would not exist if it were not for the knowledgeable practices of those actors. Adler (2002:100) comments that although individuals carry knowledge, ideas and meanings in their heads, they also know, think and feel only in the context of and with reference to collective or intersubjective understandings, including rules and language. It is from this

The foreign policies of Mandela and Mbeki : a clear case of idealism vs realism?